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The elite that failed

economist.com

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Re: The elite that failed

#41

Post by zozbot123 »

kuhhk wrote: post #27
benmmurphy wrote: post #19

I'm not sure how this is a failure of the elite. The elite want to be in the EU and we are still in the EU. That doesn't seem to be a failure to me. That seems to be a success.

> and we are still in the EU Ben, I hope you do realize your premise changes in roughly ~10 weeks, unless something extraordinary happens. Theresa is determined to leave..

> Theresa is determined to leave.

And rightly so, given the referendum outcome. However, she and the EU have a common incentive to kick the can down the road for quite a while and preserve some possibility (however small) of getting to something other than hard Brexit. It's not going to be over in 10 weeks.

Re: The elite that failed

#42

Post by rbg246 »

From my reading of Brexit it appears that there are a lot of elites on both sides of the fight...

Just seems to me that one side of elites has co-opted the non-elites more effectively on this occasion.

Re: The elite that failed

#43

Post by makomk »

scarmig wrote: post #35
makomk wrote: post #23

I've seen the argument this article trots out that the referendum should've required a supermajority a lot, but it always seems more like an attempt to block something the author doesn't want than an actual principled argument. There was no supermajority required to take the major and quite possibly irreversible step of joining the EU. Indeed, there was no referendum on it at all; the 1975 referendum was on leaving a…

It's tricky. The EU of 1975 is very different from the EU of 2018 (indeed, the "EU" didn't exist then, just the EEC). Does joining a customs union even require a referendum? My initial strong gut response to this is that it shouldn't, but it's also abundantly clear now that a customs union can easily lead to much greater integration over decades. Boiling a frog. Note that all the increased integration was accepted by…

You're technically right, but I'm not sure it helps here; every step that took us from the EEC of 1972 to the modern EU was done with no UK referendum and required at most an ordinary majority in Parliament as far as I know. (Also, EU supporters rely quite heavily on the argument that the modern EU is basically the same as the original EEC, just refined, and that all of the subsequent changes were part of the original intention.)

Now, other member states did hold referendums on these changes, of course - and in some cases, their voting public ended up rejecting those changes. They went ahead anyway, usually with some tweaks to the language used to describe them but very few substantiative differences.

Re: The elite that failed

#44

Post by toyg »

scarmig wrote: post #35
makomk wrote: post #23

I've seen the argument this article trots out that the referendum should've required a supermajority a lot, but it always seems more like an attempt to block something the author doesn't want than an actual principled argument. There was no supermajority required to take the major and quite possibly irreversible step of joining the EU. Indeed, there was no referendum on it at all; the 1975 referendum was on leaving a…

It's tricky. The EU of 1975 is very different from the EU of 2018 (indeed, the "EU" didn't exist then, just the EEC). Does joining a customs union even require a referendum? My initial strong gut response to this is that it shouldn't, but it's also abundantly clear now that a customs union can easily lead to much greater integration over decades. Boiling a frog. Note that all the increased integration was accepted by…

That's an unrealistic ask. 40 years have passed since 1975, almost two generations. People die, the will of the country changes, and you cannot run elections on a single issue. Even europhile countries like France and Italy have periodic bouts of euro-skepticism, and places like Texas, Quebec or the Balkans demonstrate that tribalism is always lurking anyway.

I think the EU should simply improve its outreach programs. Some of them were very successful (Erasmus), some weren't (the EU flag on buildings is almost imperialistic).

The truth is that getting 511m+ people to agree on things, when they won't even speak the same language, will always be a huge challenge. Unfortunately, there is no alternative: this planet has to learn to resolve its problems by talking and agreeing a common course of action, so might as well start with your immediate neighbours.

Re: The elite that failed

#45

Post by flukus »

makomk wrote: post #23

I've seen the argument this article trots out that the referendum should've required a supermajority a lot, but it always seems more like an attempt to block something the author doesn't want than an actual principled argument. There was no supermajority required to take the major and quite possibly irreversible step of joining the EU. Indeed, there was no referendum on it at all; the 1975 referendum was on leaving a…

> the 1975 referendum was on leaving after we'd already joined

Something I see forgotten often is the referendum experience in other countries like Canada and Australia (who have them more frequently) is that most referendums fail, it's incredibly hard to get a vote to change the status quo because you have to convince people why changing is necessary. A vote to remain in the EEC/EU should not be seen as the same as a vote to join would have been.

I suspect this is why there has not been a second brexit vote, they know how much momentum there is behind leave side. Well that and the decade of uncertainty of stay vote would bring.

Re: The elite that failed

#46

Post by toyg »

makomk wrote: post #43
scarmig wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tricky. The EU of 1975 is very different from the EU of 2018 (indeed, the "EU" didn't exist then, just the EEC). Does joining a customs union even require a referendum? My initial strong gut response to this is that it shouldn't, but it's also abundantly clear now that a customs union can easily lead to much greater integration over decades. Boiling a frog. Note that all the increased integration was accepted by…

You're technically right, but I'm not sure it helps here; every step that took us from the EEC of 1972 to the modern EU was done with no UK referendum and required at most an ordinary majority in Parliament as far as I know. (Also, EU supporters rely quite heavily on the argument that the modern EU is basically the same as the original EEC, just refined, and that all of the subsequent changes were part of the origina…

> They went ahead anyway, usually with some tweaks to the language used to describe them but very few substantiative differences.

That's utterly false.

Ireland (twice) got legal guarantees that the scary scenarios evoked by the rejectors, would never happen.

Denmark obtained opt-outs, again listening to concerns and guaranteeing that they would never happen.

France (and basically the Dutch) literally re-negotiated the whole treaty.

Those are substantive changes. I don't know how more substantive you can get than "if we make a law you don't like, you're free to ignore it" and "ok, we'll do it again from scratch".

Re: The elite that failed

#47

Post by lettergram »

zjaffee wrote: post #20
lettergram wrote: post #2

This is a time where the monarch can and should apply mild pressure. That’s kind of the benefit of a monarchy, they have the long term interest at heart and can (used sparingly) knock people into place

The monarchs continued legitimacy and global reach is only sustained through a lack of domestic political involvement.

That's the claim, I'm saying is bullocks. There are monarch's who've been asked to return and there are monarchs (such as Norway) who have a very high approval rating.

Assisting in fixing the whole Brexit thing would be amazingly good for them politically.

Re: The elite that failed

#48

Post by netwanderer3 »

hemantv wrote: post #40
netwanderer3 wrote: post #37

The law of the universe dictates that our world is always moving toward entropy (chaos) no matter what, and things will keep getting more and more chaos everyday. These so called "elite" politicians are after all just homo sapiens, thus limited by human capabilities. They are nothing more special than you and me. Nobody really has any fucking clue what's going on or how to fix it. Nobody has been more wrong throughou…

But human nature is Inertia. So humans should be striving for less Chaos.

Which I think precisely is reason why so many people are suffering with depression and anxiety. People just cannot cope with the speed of change everywhere around the world.

Compared to the 80's or 90's in which life was much more slower and calmer, today everybody is living life on steroid. Everyone constantly feels they must optimize every detail of their life to increase productivity and yet it's still not enough.

Things will get more chaos everyday and there is no way for us to avoid it. We just need to let it all go and accept the fact that nobody can change this world, especially not by these politicians who are completely useless. Don't cling onto the life of the past, embrace the state of entropy and do not fight it.

Re: The elite that failed

#49

Post by throw564d »

benmmurphy wrote: post #34
kuhhk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we are still in the EU Ben, I hope you do realize your premise changes in roughly ~10 weeks, unless something extraordinary happens. Theresa is determined to leave..

I actually think this is unlikely. I actually I hope it happens because I think the EU is a long term con. Basically the EU is holding free trade as a hostage. Free trade offers great benefits but the EU as an institution can continue to force a greater political union on the countries forming the union even if this political union is not to the benefit of these countries. We are seeing it right now with the Brexit n…

I think the UK's mistake is not realising the EU is run by power drunk ideologues.

Re: The elite that failed

#50

Post by throw564d »

toyg wrote: post #26
paulpauper wrote: post #4

2016: brexit vote indicates failure of elite 2019: failure to ratify vote indicates failure of elite pick one

You equate a target (EU membership) as the criteria for failure, whereas the failure is in the approach to the problem itself, regardless of outcomes. A decent elite would not have gambled away the future of the country just to get rid of a couple of party rivals (2016) or to keep a schizophrenic party together (2019). In both cases, machinations were set in motion in a completely careless way, with an outrageously c…

I'm sick of people saying it is inevitable that Brexit will be a failure. Do you have a crystal ball?
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